Street art

Do you remember the wall covered with graffiti that I visited a few weeks ago here? We went back there yesterday and were surprised to find that the wall had been painted over in white and is now covered with a whole new set of images.
I originally labeled this art as "graffiti" but it should be more correctly labeled as "street art," don't you think?
It was a sunny Sunday, and several artists were hard at work on new images.

Flea market

Sunday's bike ride and photo expedition took us to the flea market at the Porte de Montreuil on the eastern border of Paris. You can buy tools, bicycle parts, and kitchen supplies here. In fact, you can find everything from lingerie to surplus army helmets. And since the market caters to arabic-speaking buyers and sellers, you can find a full range of dresses and headcoverings.
Need an old film camera? A calculator? Or a pair of shoes? One-stop shopping here.
There is an element of sadness about the market as people scratch among the discounted and discarded articles.

But these smiles were genuine.

Sculpture park

The weather was mild yesterday, so Patrice and I grabbed a Velib' and bicycled over to a nearby sculpture park on the Seine. We continue to experiment with our new cameras.

Be careful, Elaine. Don't drop your camera. And don't fall in the river!

Cezanne in Paris

“With an apple, I will astonish Paris,” Cézanne said. And so he did. And even today, still does.

We've seen two exceptional exhibitions featuring Cezanne in the last two weeks. The first, "Cezanne et Paris" is showing at the Musée du Luxembourg until February 26th. Cezanne is usually associated with Aix en Provence, however, he spent over half of his life painting in Paris and its environs. This is one of the more well known images from that exhibit.

This week we revisited Cezanne - plus Matisse and Picasso - at the Grand Palais for a special exhibit featuring the Stein collection. The Stein family - the writer Gertrude Stein, and her two brothers Leo and Michael, moved to Paris in the early twentieth century. They were among the first collectors of the paintings of Matisse and Picasso and this exhibit traces the impact of their support of avant garde art. Here are a few examples of the works featured here.

By the way, if you missed the exhibit in Paris, you can see it at the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art from Feb 28 - Jun 3, 2012

Classic cars

I think I've mentioned that Patrice loves classic cars? This morning's excursion followed a classic car parade through the streets of Paris.



Patrice knows everything there is to know about every Citroen ever made . . .

Père Lachaise

This week's photo expedition took us to Père Lachaise - Paris' largest and most visited cemetery. Tourists come to see the final resting place for personalities ranging from Jim Morrison to Edith Piaf, from Molière to Oscar Wilde. There are artists, composers, and politicians; household names seen on street signs and metro stations throughout the city. The cemetery is also home to significant and moving war memorials.

I've been experimenting in black and white, but I am still overwhelmed by the choices and controls - both in the camera while shooting, as well as in post-production color balancing. Please bear with me as I learn.






We rode bicycles to the cemetery and dressed for practicality and comfort of navigating the cobblestone paths and climbing the hills. However, I felt underdressed compared to other visitors to the grave of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret.

Bonne Année

Happy New Year and Bonne Année to all of my friends, family, and loyal readers. I wish you health and happiness in 2012.